I took the liberty of running the Flex Mode version of Immerseus over the weekend. Did manage to kill it within a few attempts. Our gear was scaled to 506 item level. Our group consisted of 10 players so we didn’t get a chance to check out the dynamic scaling in action. Players that are deep in the normal mode of Throne of Thunder shouldn’t have much difficulty with this boss. Check out the video and make note of the healing tips.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, WoW Insider has started releasing a series of weekly Google Hangout videos. On the WoW Hangout, it’s a group of us WoW Insider folks talking about different topics on a week to week basis. This week, we talked about Flex raids.

One of the questions posed was “Do you think it’s going to be mandatory for players to run three sets of raids? Isn’t that extreme?” I wanted to expand on my answers.

It all comes down to what you want out of this game. Over the years, there’s been this mad rush to get your character as geared out as possible so that you can do all the harder and fun stuff. Flex adds a third potential raiding lockout that you and your raid group can take advantage of. I feel that a small percentage of people will actually do this and try to blitz through all three lockouts. However, we need to remember that Raid Finder and Flex will be gated on release day. I remember reading somewhere that Flex will be on a slightly faster timetable (Can’t source it, so I may be incorrect).

It’s not something you can simply queue into either like you would for Raid Finder.

If you actually do choose to run three raids a week, you should be able to get the armor and gear you need for your character quickly. That’s three sets of “loot pools” to choose from. Eventually, you’ll reach an equilibrium where there’s no longer a purpose to running the Raid Finder. You’ll be bouncing between Flex and Normal. After that, you’ll (at minimum) have items that are at least equal to the Flex level of drops. Won’t need to run that anymore, either. Your time should then be freed up to running just the Normal a week.

At least, that’s under the generous assumption that the loot Gods are kind to you. Did you remember to make your monthly Murloc sacrifice to appease them?

I really think that once all of the raid lockouts are available, players in raid groups that are ahead of the curve won’t be running all three week. Don’t kill yourself running this.

Plus summer’s here!

As for me, once Matticus is done being all geared out, I won’t be bringing him into those side raids anymore. If anything, I’ll activate Saphfira (Elemental Shaman) and Denesia (Frost Mage). That’ll keep giving me a reason to run Flex raids on our off nights of raiding (Wednesday nights). It’s completely optional and it’s the perfect environment for players with alts or working on offspecs to get some practice in case we need to call upon them on the main raid. Until Flex comes out, my guild and friends are content with running parts 3 and 4 of ToT. Part 2 simply takes too long because there’s so much trash and snails. I’m not inclined to run part 1, either.

Some of our retired raiders have even expressed some interest in coming back just for that. It’s a lower stress environment and they know that the group we have has the capability to smash through it.

I’ve seen the projected map for the new Siege of Orgrimmar raid. It’s expected to contain 13 bosses. My worry is that we may not be able to get through all of that in a single night. If that happens, we’re going to need to split the run into a week 1 and week 2 deal where we can knock out as much as possible in the first day before coming back next week and cleaning up.

Here’s another blue post with more details about how the lockout will work.

“Will the lockout be similar to LFR where you can run it again (with only 1 chance per week for loot) or will it be like normal, where you can only kill a boss once per week?”

Right now, the idea is to have FR lockouts work very similarly to lockouts in LFR.
You will be able to repeat bosses, and that will actually still be somewhat rewarding, you’ll be able to use additional bonus rolls, earn Valor Points, and potentially loot some shinnies from trash…

There’s something unique about FRs though, I’ll explain it with an example:
Let’s say you join a 12man and kill the first boss, leave the raid, and join a 20man, you might have to repeat the first boss.

“Might”, so how does that work?
If everyone in the new 20man raid has already killed the first boss just like you did, then that boss will not spawn.
But even if only 1 of the players in that 20man has not killed the first boss, he will spawn again and everyone else will have to repeat the encounter.

Yikes! Maybe the whole week 1/week 2 raiding thing won’t work as well as I thought! That’s assuming we bring in a new player the next week. Being able to farm the same bosses repeatedly for valor points? Hrm!

Are you thinking about running all three lockouts or are you content with just one or two? What plans do you have about your alts (if any)?

I recently purchased a Flex plan from my cell company where I’d be charged monthly based on the amount of data I actually used. I don’t know if I’ll always be near a wireless access point or not but at least the charges will scale accordingly.

Speaking of Flex plans, Blizzard’s taking a page out of that book and introduced a new type of raiding: The Flex Raid difficulty.

We can bring anywhere from 10 – 25 people and the bosses will scale.

We can invite friends from other realms via battle tag

Item level is between raid finder and normal but loot will be handled via raid finder loot system

Separate lockout from raid finder, normal/heroic

I’m still digesting the news. Usually my raid will run through raid finder once a week. We’ve started bringing in and carrying our alts. People are still running raid finder to grab their Titan Runestones at the start. Raid finder is great if I just want to mind numbingly get my way through an instance, gear up an alt, and just generally not have to think but mash buttons. I can eat every void zone, stand in every fire, miss every interrupt, and can live (most of the time).

What kind of example am I setting, right?

Why it’s good

This is great for guilds and cross realm raid groups. Players don’t have to transfer their characters from server to server to raid. I know there’s players out there who have a whole train of alts with assorted professions designed to support their main. If that player is satisfied with raiding on the flex plan, then they can still see the content in the game without committing money to move their supply train.

Second, from a recruiting standpoint, this is a huge tool for a prospect to raid with a potential guild and see if they’d fit in. Right now, we run livestreams and invite possible recruits on to our Mumble in order to give them a look at our raids. I can see a day set aside where recruits can jump in and raid with the team – And the beauty is a whole 25 man team isn’t going to be needed either.

Third, what about guilds that are looking to scale up from 10 to 25 man? This is another excellent way for them to gradually expand. It’s often a nightmare to make an immediate jump from a 10 man to a 25 man raiding guild. Sometimes the pool of player availability isn’t always there. The flex raid allows them to slowly (but surely) change their raid size until a consistent 25 raiders is found for the inevitable shift to normal modes.

But at the end of the day, Flex Raid isn’t a normal raid. It will never carry the prestige or reputation that normal and heroic kills grant. I doubt it’ll be taken seriously but maybe that’s what the main point of the flex raid is. It’s not designed to be cutting edge or challenging. It’s supposed to bring you, your family, and your friends together to raid where you don’t have to deal with potential morons in raid finder. You get to raid on your terms with whoever you want with relaxed restrictions.

Will you flex?

I’m still weighing the costs and benefits of working in Flex raiding for Conquest. I’d remove guild sanctioned Raid Finder from the list of activities and swap to this instead. At minimum, I would have to have at least two tanks available for this. With Raid Finder, I’d be able to go in with whatever composition I had available. The potential drops are better than raid finder anyway. I imagine my current raiding gear from Throne of Thunder will be better than the Raid Finder and flex drops in 5.4. If anything, Flex will be used to help ease our way into progression raids or on nights where half the raid is unable to attend.

Where does the flex raid factor into your guild’s raiding plans? What about your raiding plans? I’ll end up changing my Wednesday night raid finder to the flex raid instead.

Two years between BlizzCons is such a long time! Our regularly night guild LFR group was temporarily halted. We opted to run part 4 of LFR first. Ultimately we wiped to Lei Shen at the end (largely because we didn’t have a full guild group, oops). Right about the time we wiped, my cellphone alarm went off and we told the raid that we were going to take a quick break and pause attempts while we attempted to purchase tickets to BlizzCon. Of course, several of the pug players were pissed off. But they could either wait 15 minutes for us to finish or wait 30 minutes for the queuing debuff to wear off. This one rogue in particular was so pissed off that he pulled Lei Shen and wiped everyone again before rage quitting.

Oh well.

All that time spent in League of Legends clicking and using skill shots paid off. I managed to get in line at position 1702 (and using the drop down box to select 4 tickets simultaneously *flex*).

My guild mates were also able to secure tickets. The Conquest contingent will consist of around 20 players (at least)! This is going to be our largest meetup yet! It’s going to be damn tough to find a place where we can simply relax and lounge around at. I figure everything within walking distance of the convention center’s going to be snapped up anyway (or really difficult to accommodate). Next thing I need to do is get some shirts made for everyone. Remember how in school they created printed hoodies for every year’s graduating class? Might just do something like that annually. Speaking of which, any shrewd GMs out there that are looking to recruit should consider making some business cards. Conquest recruited some solid and steady players just by networking there. Someone suggested Conquest branded shot glasses, but I think that statement was made as a joke.

Even though it’s months away, I’m already stressing out about the event. I’ve already met a number of players from the guild in previous events. But we’re going to have some new faces this year. Are we going to be able to get along in real life as we do online? Am I going to get overwhelmed with a bunch of guild business about ideas on how to improve the guild? Are they going to sneak sedatives into my drinks so they can sharpie my face when I pass out?

I’m almost tempted to put together a disguise actually. Every joke and remark I’ve made at a guldie’s expense is probably going to come back and haunt me when I run into these clowns at Anaheim. I’m pretty sure no amount of asskissing I do is going to offset whatever beatings may come my way so I may as well keep making said remarks. I mean how much worse can it get, right? Even though I’ll never admit it to them directly, they’re a good crew to have and I’m happy to play alongside such an excellent team. The players that have left for various reasons will always be considered my guildies to me regardless of what tag they have and they’ll always be welcome here.

I still hate them all though.

In all due seriousness, BlizzCon is such a short time. I wish an extra day were added just so I can see more people from the community. I remember meeting Ceraphus and Xia (she has way too much energy) last time from The Sundering podcast. Looks like Fimlys from the Twisted Nether will be there too! And of course, all my friends and colleagues from WoW Insider. We’ve all attended these conventions year after year and it’s virtually the same crew. We’ve started with greeting each other with handshakes and have since moved on to hugs. If my understanding is correct, I’ll also get an opportunity to run into Medros from All Things Azeroth, one of the longest standing community members around. I’m also looking forward to meeting Twizz (from the Twizzcast).

Anyone else going? It’d be awesome to meet even more people this year! I promise, my guild won’t bite if you run into them (but they have a hell of a bark).

My guild has a peculiar sense of humour. After we killed Jin’Rokh last night, we move up to the bridge of doom. There’s all these ghostly adds floating on the sides and the wind just blows people off in different directions off the bridge. It’s a complete gong show but eventually we figured out how to do it. The trick is to grab each ghostly add from each side and tank them at the beginning. A raider noticed something about the wind textures.

One of my players remarks, “ Doesn’t that wind pattern look like the sine symbol?”

An officer responds, “Or the cosine symbol.”

Another player shoots back, “It’s certainly integral to what we’re doing.”

Not to be outdone, a different player pipes up, “I don’t think it’s a major factor.”

At this point, I rolled my eyes and flatly stated, “You’re all being irrational.”

Sigh.

Apparently, that’s my guild on a patch night. We were able to take down Horridon and put in some shots on the Council fight before we called it a night. I don’t know about you, but I’m already getting tired of the trash.

Ever wanted to come up with your own raid strategy instead of relying on videos and write-ups from people in the community?

Here’s your chance.

One of the recent raid tests on the 5.2 PTR was for Jin’Rokh. He’s the very first boss of the instance. He serves as the DPS and mechanics check for the Throne of Thunder. In today’s post, I am going to show you Jin’Rokhs abilities. I won’t tell you how to beat it. You’re going to put on your raid leading tactics hat.

I want you to tell me how your team is going to beat it.

There are four statues in the corner around the room. Jin’Rok will throw a tank against the statue (Thundering Throw). The tank takes 250k+ in damage. Nearby players within 14 yards will take 200k and become stunned temporarily. The impact of Thundering Throw creates a pool of water on the ground. All players standing in this gradually growing circular-shaped pool gains Fluidity (40% increased healing, 30% increased damage done, but 80% nature damage taken). The pool increases the damage of any nature damage dealt by the boss to anyone standing within it.

Every so often, Jinrokh spawns an orb close to him (Focused Lightning). The orb will target a player and slowly travel toward them (Note the eyes above the player). When the orb reaches a player, it detonates and creates a mini-lightning spike (called a Lightning Fissure).

If a player kites an orb into an existing Lightning Fissure, it will explode for lethal, raid-wide damage on contact. If an orb contacts a player inside the water, all players will be hit for 150k+.

After the pool expands to a quarter of the chamber, Jinrokh summons a lightning storm inflicting 70k damage per second to all players for 15 seconds. In addition, this storm electrifies the existing pools rendering players unable to use them for appropriate buffs and taking massive damage.

The question remains.

How is your raid going to defeat Jin’rokh? Where should they stand? Where does the boss get positioned?

The new Thunderforged item concept adds another two levels of items into raids. Only available to items that are non-tier. Not sure how the slight stat allocation of Thunderforged compares to the set bonuses that tier provides, but that’s not the object of discussion here.

Much of the feedback Blizzard received was around 25 man raiding and how to proportionately reward those who eagerly go through the logistical challenges of organizing them (y’know, hopeless idiots like myself). 25 mans are gradually diminishing. Top guilds Vodka and Exodus merged resulting in the loss of another prominent 25 man guild.

Coming to the PTR in the near future will be a new designation of item type in Normal and Heroic raids for non-tier pieces. Each 5.2 raid boss will have a chance of dropping this new designation of a particular item that’s 6 item levels higher than their counterparts. These higher quality versions will be called “Thunderforged”. This means that there will be five variations of some items. You’ll now see a 5.2 raid item of LFR quality at item level 502, the same item in Normal quality at item level 522, the item in Normal Thunderforged quality at item level 528, the Heroic version of the item at level 535, and the Heroic Thunderforged version of the item at level 541.

[…]

We’ve also received a lot of feedback regarding 25-player raids, and have been looking for ways to address some concerns. Ever since we changed 10-player raids to drop the same item level as 25’s, we’ve seen a steady decline in 25-player raiding. This isn’t surprising. A 25-player raid takes an extra level of logistical commitment for the officers of those groups. It’s unfortunately easy for a 25-player guild to collapse down into a 10-player guild, but very unlikely for the opposite to happen. However, we like 25-player raiding and don’t want to see it go away. Like many players, we love the epic feeling that comes with banding together more massive groups to battle powerful foes, we love that there’s opportunity for those groups to try out new players or unusual comps without causing a huge burden, and we want to support the larger raiding guilds. That said, we’re also concerned that over-rewarding the 25-player guilds-if, for example, we went back to a higher item level across the board for 25’s, as was the case for Icecrown Citadel-would feel like a slap in the face to the many 10-player raiders out there, who are the majority of our Normal and Heroic raiders.

To attempt to navigate this minefield, we’re going to try having Thunderforged items drop more frequently in 25-player raids. They’ll be somewhat rare in both cases compared to the standard versions that’ll drop, but they’ll be even rarer in 10’s. Overall, a 25-player group will be more likely to end up with a slightly higher item level after several weeks of raiding.

This isn’t going to have much effect on the guilds that already run 25 man raids. Conquest has survived some of the worst ordeals in it’s history. 10 man raiding has never been a long term solution in any fashion and it never will be as long as I continue to run it. The players and the leaders have no interest in it all and that resiliency has helped us.

Have to admit, reward incentive here with the Thunderforged is cool. It’s a neat compromise to the whole suggestion of adding a completely different level of gear between 25s and 10s (the Wrath style). I’ve seen cases of 25s dropping down to 10s butI have never seen a 10 man raid step up to a 25 man raid which continues to be active. If you happen to be the architect of such a move, give me a shout!

More importantly, is this going be enough to influence players to make the switch from 10 to 25? I don’t think so. My guess is no. The interactions I’ve had with the 10 man players is that they have no interest in the logistical maintenance that’s required at the 25 level. There’s a strong preference for the closer intimacy that’s offered.

This change seems to be targeting the players that like having the best stuff available. They raid a set amount of hours a week and they want to really maximize their return on their time investment.

What about the leaders? As I said, it’s a cool reward for the few that brave the logistical nightmares. But if you’re a 10 man raid leader, is it enough to consider to make that shift? I’m not sure about that. Seems to me that the players already comfortable where they are don’t want to take that leap. I gather there’s large number of players that aren’t raiding purely for the gear level (but I acknowledge that there are some who do).

During Wrath, 25s were the dominant raiding force. The challenges there offered undoubtedly better geared compared to the 10 man counterparts. With this in place, 25 man raiders have a better chance of securing better gear compared to the 10 man raiders. The 10 man players won’t be shut out. They’ll still have a chance at it but it won’t be as strong. We’ll have to wait and see what the frequency of the Thunderforge drops are going to be.

I took a quick poll on Twitter to see what other people felt.

Yes or no: Is Thunderforged enough to make you consider joining a 25 man raid group?

So not exactly eager to look for a 25 but won’t resist if the current leadership decides to go that route. That’s fair. It does lower the barrier slightly. And this change does seem to go after the players that are either on the fence or virtually indifferent.

@matticus Yes. I joined a guild for 25s and they downsized to Alpha and Bravo 10mans 3 days later. I hope it’s enough to bring people back.

That’s unexpected. So in the grand scheme of things, there is an extremely slight chance that it’s enough to split a 10 man (maybe not break it).

What are your thoughts on this addition? Is it enough to give you a reason to start looking around for 25s? Are you or your raid leaders suitably incentivized to give 25s a shot or look for a guild to merge with? Or does nothing change and the status quo is maintained?

The default UI’s been updated in the latest patch 5.2 PTR build. We’ve clamored for the ability to view absorb information. That stuff was added into the combat log sometime ago. Now we can actually see how much our shields will absorb for in the various frames.

Monks get a new Level-60 talent called Ring of Peace:

Ring of Peace forms a 8 yard sanctuary around the target for 8 seconds, causing all enemies in the area of effect to be silenced and disarmed.

What you don’t see in the above picture is that the ring gradually diminishes and grows smaller in size. You bet it’s a PvP talent! It’s great for any defensive or offensive work that needs to be done. If I manage to root a bunch of players, I hope a Monk drops this right on top.

Finally, here we see the reworked Shadow Word: Insanity.

For Shadow, this ability causes Mind Flay to gain the Insanity effect when it’s cast on a target with 3 Shadow damage-over-time spells on them. Insanity causes Mind Flay to deal double damage for the duration.

In essence, when your target has 3 DoTs active, Mind Flay does double damage. Now my question for the theorycrafters is this:

Since Mind Flay will always do double damage with 3 DoTs up, does this mean we should activate Devouring Plague with only 1 Shadow orb or continue to save and use Devouring Plague at 3? The only way to negate this question is if the Insanity effect were to somehow scale based upon the potency of Devouring Plague.

Okay, that’s not actually going to happen. As much as I miss the days of 1 button Circle of Healing during Burning Crusade and non-stop shielding in Wrath, it was largely so I could keep watching my NHL games without having to compromise my performance too much.

In a recent thread about PTR class and set bonus issues, Ghostcrawler mentioned the following:

We are going to nerf Divine Aegis for Prayer of Healing, but also lower the cost of Power Word: Shield (for Disc only) and increase the healing and damage of Penance. In 25 raids, Disc is using Prayer of Healing almost exclusively and we don’t think the Spirit Shell change will be sufficient to change that. We actually want Disc to get back to using PW:Shield a little more, along with Penance. Disc’s throughput is overall too strong in PvE, not even counting the fact that absorbs are often more beneficial than heals.

The Divine Aegis aspect on Prayer of Healing gets tuned down but we get cheaper Power Word: Shields instead.

I don’t know what it’s like at the 10 man level, but at the 25 man level, Disc Priests are predominantly using Prayer of Healing. It’s just that effective! More tactical usage of Penance and PW: Shield needs to be done clearly. Right now, we have the ability to run two Priests in our composition. You’d think that 2 Disc priests would limit the amount of shields being thrown up because of the whole Weakened Soul debuff and the fact that shields cause a dent in mana.

But realistically at the 25 man level, two Disc priests sharing the burden isn’t going to shoot the raid in the foot. There’s lots of targets to go around. There’s damage coming from all over the place (in most cases). Those shields provide an extra buffer and can buy players an extra second or two. Bonus points for cheaper shields.

Remember when Discipline sucked back in the day?

I just hope it doesn’t go too far in the other direction and we find out massive quantities of shield spam are back in season. I don’t think it is because we learned how that was in Wrath and while it was strong, it wasn’t fun.

What other clarifications?

The Golden Apparition from the Healing 4pc heals the lowest % health friendly target within 40yd. Note that it has no visual yet, but will not work like Shadowy Apparitions. It is a simple missile, not a summoned unit.

Good to hear. I’m getting annoyed at my Shadow Apparitions sometime just sitting there. Glad to know my healing priests won’t have to suffer from that. Cant’ wait to see this bonus in action though. I hope the missile isn’t as slow as the Shadow Apparition. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if, you know, by the time your holy guardian activated and healed your ally they were already at full health because your healers were already doing their job?

Angelic Bulwark and Spirit Shell can no longer be dispelled.

On the one hand, this sucks because I can’t offensively get rid of these buffs on people in PvP. On the other hand, this is awesome because now I won’t lose them during PvP.

We are going to redesign Shadow Word: Insanity.

Can’t wait to see this. There’s something about this ability that strikes me as off whenever I try using it. I’ve mainly stuck with From Darkness, Comes Light. Honestly, 4 seconds isn’t that small of a window to get Insanity off on a boss.

So then why do I feel so awkward using it?

Our current though on Solace is that it will provide damage and healing for both Disc and Holy. So Holy could use it for some Atonement-like healing, as could Disc, but Disc won’t double dip and shouldn’t feel like it’s mandatory. That could change (all of this could change) as we try it out and iterate more.

Took a look at this on the PTR. Holy Fire gets changed to Power Word: Solace so it’s one less button that takes up your spell book.

Neat! I think we’re approaching that point where we’re starting to have too much crap in our spellbook so I do like the fact that we’re condensing something. Unlike Holy Fire, Solace is instant, offers you 1% mana back, but has a 10 second cooldown.

The current version of Solace is a 1.5 second cast time which restores 0.7% maximum mana but has no cooldown.

Doesn’t the new version of Solace seem a little too low in the mana return area?

Khendra, we have no objection to using Prayer of Healing when you need to heal a bunch of people. That’s what it’s for. But when you’re using Prayer of Healing in preparation for future damage because DA and SS make your AE heal better at shielding than actual Power Word: Shield, then that even further reduces your options. (In 10s, Disc tends to use Atonement more, so they’re doing something more than just PoH spam. In 25s, we see some Atonement use, but it’s fit in when possible and healers in 25s are just always going to be able to specialize more.)

We might in the future add another AE heal for Disc (I think you can make a compelling argument that in this day and age, healers need a variety of interesting AE heals and maybe only a couple of ST heals, while healer design for years went in the opposite direction) but that’s not the sort of thing we want to drop on you in the middle of an expansion. In the meantime, if Disc uses Penance and PW:Shield some more (and Flash Heal in PvP) and doesn’t trounce all the other healers, we will be satisfied and hopefully so will priests.

Won’t be seeing that until 6.0 is my guess. We’ve got a ton of single target healing. Having Divine Star, Cascade, and Halo access were all great because we could customize our AoE healing based on the task at hand.

Another baseline AoE would be interesting though. You’d be hard pressed to find a method for AoE absorbs that isn’t already covered by what Spirit Shell can do.

Okay, I’m guessing it’s an AoE absorb. They think it’s a little excessive to chain cast Prayer of Healing in advance of a Bonestorm even though that’s the best method in countering incoming damage (even if every player’s at full health).

Can’t wait to see what they’re thinking about doing though though!

As for me, I’m still rolling around in Shadow. We’ll be challenging Blade Lord tonight. We’re getting picked apart by Wind Step and Unseen Strike combinations. Not quite sure how to counter that. It’s not like we’re losing half the raid. But each time an Unseen Strike hits, we always lose a player. I’m sure we can battle through it and add another heroic notch to our belt but if anyone has any pointers or suggestions, I’d be grateful.

Are these changes going to cause you Disc Priests to consider reverting back to Holy? Or no change at all? What do you think about the proposed Solace change?

Epic

About me

My name is Matticus and this is my World of Warcraft blog. Here you can read about my thoughts regarding healing as a priest. As a former guild master, I also write about guild and raid related topics. The blog has expanded to include thoughts from other regular contributors. The aim of this blog is to help you grow and improve. My unending goal is to have something relevant and useful in every post. or more, you can check out my columns on Blizzard Watch. Visit theGuildmasters to talk shop with other GMs, raid leaders, and officers. Or if you're looking to join a guild, check out my guild Integrity.